html question for computer geeks re bracket types

[Aynmair]

Can one of you html geniuses tell me why the story submission site uses these types of brackets <> while the thread site uses these instead [ ] ? It's mildly annoying but no biggie. It's just that I want to know the reason behind the use.

If this was covered somewhere earlier, my sincere apologies... please point me there...

 

[Hypoxia]

Can one of you html geniuses tell me why the story submission site uses these types of brackets <> while the thread site uses these instead [ ] ? It's mildly annoying but no biggie. It's just that I want to know the reason behind the use.

If this was covered somewhere earlier, my sincere apologies... please point me there...

Why? Because they're different coding systems.

vB [Visual Basic] code uses square brackets; HTML <hypertext markup language> uses angle brackets. HTML is very powerful and can be used to embed nasty stuff in online pages such as this forum -- vB code (here) does not allow such embedding. For more on the code, look at the bottom left corner of this page. Click on vB CODE IS ON for a rundown.

The story submission software recognizes HTML tags -- and ignores all except a very few: <I> italics, <B> boldface, <U> underline, <C> center, and <blockquote> indent. Toxic codes are thus filtered. As to WHY the submission warez use HTML instead of vB -- fuck if I know! Tradition, I guess.

 

[Aynmair]

hmmm

Why? Because they're different coding systems.

vB [Visual Basic] code uses square brackets; HTML <hypertext markup language> uses angle brackets. HTML is very powerful and can be used to embed nasty stuff in online pages such as this forum -- vB code (here) does not allow such embedding. For more on the code, look at the bottom left corner of this page. Click on vB CODE IS ON for a rundown.

The story submission software recognizes HTML tags -- and ignores all except a very few: <I> italics, <B> boldface, <U> underline, <C> center, and <blockquote> indent. Toxic codes are thus filtered. As to WHY the submission warez use HTML instead of vB -- fuck if I know! Tradition, I guess.

Thanks! Hmm ... so based on what you say and the list of vB codes, is it that they want to give posters more flexibility here while allowing less room for mischief than on the story threads? On the other hand, sounds like vB codes would work there too - any reason why not?

 

[TxRad]

Thanks! Hmm ... so based on what you say and the list of vB codes, is it that they want to give posters more flexibility here while allowing less room for mischief than on the story threads? On the other hand, sounds like vB codes would work there too - any reason why not?

They were set up at different times. The stories were already HTML when this type forum was installed. Or maybe this was an update to what they already had. It's been a while ago.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

The stories are stored in the database as html text pages, where the forum posts are stored as forum post which allow vB codes and not html, two different databases. The forums uses vBulletin for the forums, where the story side of things uses php and sql server.

 

[sr71plt]

The story submission software recognizes HTML tags -- and ignores all except a very few: <I> italics, <B> boldface, <U> underline, <C> center, and <blockquote> indent. Toxic codes are thus filtered. As to WHY the submission warez use HTML instead of vB -- fuck if I know! Tradition, I guess.

Does this answer a question from a few days ago? A blockquote would be the same thing as an extract.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Sounds like someones butt is still sore about...whatever.

 

[sr71plt]

Why? Because I concentrated on the issue raised and others did exactly what you're doing here, Zeb? I don't think you and some others have a thing to say about sore butts and bruised egos.

Is this not a good indication who starts crap here as well?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Does this answer a question from a few days ago? A blockquote would be the same thing as an extract.

You do.

 

[Weird Harold]

Can one of you html geniuses tell me why the story submission site uses these types of brackets <> while the thread site uses these instead [ ] ? It's mildly annoying but no biggie. It's just that I want to know the reason behind the use.

It has to do with what your browser understands: HTML. Your browser cannot understand vBasic codes directly but the forum software is written in vBasic and does understand those codes but (as implemented here) interprets HTML codes as plain text.

The story side of the site draws the stories from the database, wraps them in the basic overhead HTML and sends them to your browser -- which interprets the HTML tags as commands to use Italics, Bold, or whatever.

The forum side of the site reads the posts from its database and builds a webpage according to your preferences for number of posts, ignored users, etc. it the parses (interprets) the webpage and converts vB and forum commands into HTML and sends the result to your browser.

IOW, the forums have a lot more to do to send you a webpage, and the instructions for doing that are in Visual Basic (aka vBasic)

 

[RejectReality]

Does this answer a question from a few days ago? A blockquote would be the same thing as an extract.

If you need an example of what <blockquote> looks like when processed by Lit, I make extensive use of it in this story for the "documentary" portions.

http://www.literotica.com/s/documentary-cougar

 

[sr71plt]

If you need an example of what <blockquote> looks like when processed by Lit, I make extensive use of it in this story for the "documentary" portions.

http://www.literotica.com/s/documentary-cougar

Yep, that does it. Thanks.

 

[Aynmair]

Thanks to all

...who took their time to answer. Learned something, I did.

 

[PervOtaku]

Forums don't want people to inject just any old html into their posts (bad things end up happening), so the near-universal solution was to allow limited formatting using the square brackets instead of the angle brackets. The forum software turns them into the proper html code when it puts it on your screen.

The story submission here is essentially the same thing by a different mechanism, the stories are reviewed by hand and probably run through a filter or something to remove any html beyond the simple formatting that is allowed.